her hair from where it had been coiled. She saw that the porter assigned to them
was right behind her, and forced herself not to ask the questions that hovered
in her mind. Instead, she swore vividly in her Renney patois, releasing the fear
and anger in colorful phrases, not caring if her son learned some bad language.
"You might have warned me we were coming into a storm!" The words sounded lame
to her when compared with those she would have liked to voice.
Herm watched Katherine capture her long black hair, drawing the strands out like
whips around her exhausted face. She had a keen temper, his Kate, and being
dragged out of her bed in the middle of the night, then taken halfway across the
galaxy with no reasonable explanation had strained her control to its limits. He
had caught the questions which rose in her mind a few times-for all telepathic
purposes she was practically shouting-and knew what it had cost her to hold them
back. Only her own understanding that her diplomat husband was unlikely to speak
frankly with the Federation listening had saved him from a grueling cross
questioning thus far. Instead he had been treated to cold silence, which was, in
his opinion, even worse.
But Herm laughed in spite of himself, even knowing it would enrage her further,
smelling the wonderful clean scent of autumn coming in from the west. He could
not help himself. The cold stung his cheeks, bracing and familiar, but it had no
hint of snow in it yet. He had forgotten how it felt, and until that moment had
not realized how the ache of homesickness had been his daily companion. He had
not been home for over two decades, and that was too long a time.
He put his arm around her slender waist, drawing her against him. He could feel
the warmth of her flesh, and smell the faint chemical odor from the ship's
fresher. She resisted his touch, and he let her go reluctantly.
"A storm? Nothing like, Katherine. This is merely a refreshing breeze." He
sniffed knowingly, speaking with more ease than he felt. "But I would be
surprised if it did not rain before nightfall."
Amaury, who had his mother's dark hair and pale skin, gave his stepfather a
skeptical glance, while Ter‚se leaned against his leg, shivering. Herm bent down
and scooped up the girl, even though she was rather big for that now. She was a
pretty thing, with the red hair and green eyes so common in the Aldaran clan.
Indeed, she very much resembled his sister Gisela when she was the same age. "Is
it always this cold, Daddy?" She huddled against his shoulder trustingly. She
had never seen snow, and rain never fell in the controlled climate in which they
had lived their lives.
"No, little one. This is nothing compared to winter. But soon we will be in a
warm carriage-assuming that Lew got the message I sent from Vainwal-and after
that, in a nice warm house." He pointed across the peaked roofs of Thendara. "Do
you see that big building up on the hill? That is where we are going, I
believe." He had never seen it before, but he knew the vast structure must be
Comyn Castle.
Even at a distance, it was enormous. The white of the stonework gleamed in the
afternoon sun, and he could make out the movement of pennons and flags flapping
from the towers and buttresses. On one side there was a dark ruin, as if part of
the building had been struck by lightning and never repaired. For no reason he
could name, the sight of it gave him a sudden chill of unease.
"That is not a house," Amaury protested.
"No, it isn't. It is a castle."
"Is that the castle you grew up in, Father?" Amaury had stopped calling him Dad
a few months earlier, and adopted this more formal means of address. He was
almost thirteen now, and was acting just as Herm had at the same age, finding
ways to distance himself from his parents and starting to become a separate
person.
"No. Aldaran Castle is far away, up in the Hellers-tall, tall mountains-and you
cannot even see them from here. Come along. We will be inside soon, and we can
have a nice hot bath and some food that did not come from a dispenser." He
signaled to the porter, assigned to him by the Customs officer because he was,
it appeared, still a Senator. The man, a civilian employee of the Federation,
had a cart piled with the few belongings they had brought.
They had left so much behind! Herm had promised he would have things shipped
later, but he knew that this was unlikely to happen. Everything they had not
taken would be confiscated. He was still amazed that he had gotten Katherine
away without so much as a quarrel, bringing only those things which were
precious or irreplaceable. She had not even questioned him after being awakened
so abruptly, as if she sensed the urgency of his mood. "I have been called back
to Darkover, dearest," he had said. "I must leave immediately, and I don't want
to leave you and the children behind." It had been enough in the rush to leave,
to get her moving and packing. He knew how frightened she must be, unlike the
children who seemed to have decided this was a fine adventure. She really was
incredible, his Kate.
The meanness of their habitation had prevented the accumulation of much, but
their luggage was still considerable. There were Kate's oil paints and brushes,
her sketchbooks and charcoals, Amaury's collection of Rennian warrior figures,
and two of Ter‚se's rather ragged dolls, as well as a volume of clothing
entirely unsuited to Darkover's climate. The dreadful synthetics they wore in
the ever-warm rooms of Terra were no protection against the sharp bite of wind
around them. There were holos of Katherine's enormous family on Renney, and even
his own collection of tiny ceramics, little bowls and vases no larger than his
thumb. It was a foolish thing to bring, but he had found he could not leave the
precious objects behind. Besides, a few of the pieces were rather valuable, and
he could not see any purpose in letting them either molder in some warehouse, or
be sold on the block for the profit of the Federation.
What there was not were any of the technological gewgaws of the Federation-no
communicators, computers, recorders, or broadcasters. These were forbidden by
Darkovan statutes, and the only contraband in the bags was a tiny box of lumens,
little light-emitting dots that could be applied to any surface. Herm was fond
of reading in bed, and the lumens allowed him to do so without disturbing his
wife. He spent a moment wondering how the children would react when they finally
realized how different Darkover was from what they were accustomed to. All their
young lives they had been surrounded with access to enormous amounts of data at
the touch of a finger, and instant reports of the planets in the far-flung
Federation. He wasn't sure that he was going to be comfortable himself anymore,
without mediafeeds. He shrugged the thought away.
Katherine had managed to collect her hair now, twisting it into a roll at the
back of her head. He never failed to be amazed at the cleverness of her fingers.
Fortunately, the collar of her Terran tunic came up high on her neck, so she
would not seem immodest. After so many years of
seeing women wearing low-cut
dresses, with their napes exposed in a way which had shocked him when he first
came to the Federation, he had almost forgotten that particular custom of
Darkovan clothing. With a slight start Herm wondered if he would adjust to
things he no longer thought were important-hiding the back of the neck for women
or wearing a sword for men. Was he still enough of a Darkovan to survive?
They trudged across the tarmac, heading for the archway that separated the
spaceport from the portion of Thendara called the Trade City. It was not a great
distance, but they were all thoroughly chilled by the time they reached it. He
nodded lazily at the black-clad Terran guards, and flashed his papers and
documents, refusing to allow himself to show the slightest hesitation.
Herm had forced Katherine and the children to remain in the small cabin during
most of the tedious journey. They only ventured out to get their meals in the
first class dining area. Despite its grand title, it was only a narrow galley
with plastic tables anchored to the floor, disposable plates and cutlery, and a
very limited menu in the food dispensors. The food had been nearly tasteless,
although nourishing, he supposed, and he allowed himself to look forward to some
real Darkovan cuisine.
When they had gone to Renney almost nine years before, to present Ter‚se to her
great-grandmother, there had still been a semblance of amenities on the ships
they had traveled on. But the austerity measures that were now commonplace
within the Federation had made themselves present on the ship. It seemed to
Hermes symptomatic of all that was amiss in the Federation, and he had been
vastly relieved to climb down the curving passageway, through second and third
class, and out into the port building half an hour before.
The other passengers in first class had been bureaucrats and business people,
suspicious and unfriendly. There had been no buzz of civilized conversation in
the dining area, as there had been on the earlier trip, but only the steady
drone of a mediafeed reporting stale news, and the click of small computer
touchboards from the other travelers. Herm had listened more from habit than
from anything else, hoping to catch some clue as to what was occurring beyond
the void in which they journeyed. There was nothing to suggest that anything
monumental was occurring, and he had begun to wonder if he had made a stupid and
expensive mistake. But on the third evening of their dull passage, he had caught
a tidbit that set his nerves thrumming. There had been a sudden, seemingly
inexplicable sell-off on the Intersystem Exchange, one of the large
interplanetary stock markets.
Strange, he reflected. When he had been a boy, running wild in Aldaran Castle,
he had never heard of a stock market, and when the term had first come up, had
imagined pens of chervine and sheep. Even his father's tame Terranan had never
mentioned this particular institution. And yet, he discovered, these commercial
enterprises were an uncanny bellwether of events, almost as if credits could see
into the future before their owners did. He could have made himself very rich by
combining his own Gift with the sense he got by watching the fluctuations of the
exchanges. Instead, he had refined his understanding over the years, until he
could extrapolate a great deal of useful information from something so
apparently irrelevant as a sudden shift in gallium futures, or the crop failure
on a minor planet.
Watching the feed scroll across the crystalline face of the monitor, he had a
sure sense of the disruption in commerce that Nagy's announcement would create.
No one, including her Expansionist advisors, could predict the economic havoc
they would wreak. He was sure someone in the know had leaked the word, in hopes
of making a quick fortune, and his broker had begun something that would spread
shock waves across the Federation. It might be months or even years before the
extent of it was realized. That was good, as far as he was concerned, because if
the Terrans were in economic crisis, they would not have time to bother with
Darkover for a while.
His worst fears had not come to pass-he had not been arrested. But he had hardly
slept during their passage, his ears on alert for a chime at the portal of the
cabin, signaling disaster. Kate, frightened and furious with him, had been very
silent, and the children had imitated her at first. Then boredom had set in, and
they had started asking him questions about Darkover. That had helped to pass
the dreary time, and even to ease his heightened senses a little. Upon their
arrival at Vainwal, both Ter‚se and Amaury had begged some credits to play at
the many games of chance that stood everywhere in the port building. Vainwal was
famous for its gambling and other leisurely pleasures, and he had handed each of
the children enough money to keep them occupied while he sent word of his
imminent arrival to Darkover. It had been a great relief to herd his small
family onto another ship, and the last leg of their journey.
Herm tensed until his papers were examined. He was still on Federation
territory, and subject to its laws, not Darkover's. He had not made too many
enemies during his years of service, but he was acutely aware that until he was
actually off Federation soil, he could still be arrested, declared an enemy of
the state, and carted off to one of several penal worlds to languish, without
trial, forgotten, until he died. It had happened to more than one of his
colleagues, enough of them to know that the reach of the Expansionist arm was
nothing to be taken lightly.
The wind gusted as he crossed the division between the Federation and Darkover,
causing his all-weather cloak to flap wildly around him. He paused to yank the
useless garment down, and set Ter‚se on the cobbled stones, experiencing a
lessening of the tension which had defined his life for months. No matter what
happened now, he had brought his family to the safest place he could think of,
and if he died that minute, they would be taken care of. His brother, Robert
Aldaran, would see that they were fed and housed, and no one would threaten them
with the possibility of imprisonment or death. It was a mistake to relax, he
realized belatedly, for the full weight of his exhaustion settled on his broad
shoulders immediately. It was all he could manage to remain standing upright.
Herm saw a large carriage which seemed to be awaiting them in the plaza beyond
the archway, with four horses stamping their feet, their tails and manes
fluttering in the wind. Their Terran luggage porter pulled his cart to a halt,
unloaded the baggage efficiently, and scuttled back through the arch, as if
being at the edge of the Trade City made him nervous. He did not even wait for a
gratuity, which was just as well, since Herm had only a small number of credit
chits still in his pocket. Then the door of the carriage swung open, and a man
Herm had never seen before stepped out. He was about Herm's age, stocky and
cheerful looking, with brown hair and blue eves that twinkled.
"Senator? I am Rafael Lanart-Hastur, and Lew Alton asked me
to meet you. He
could not get away just now." The twinkle in the eyes faded a little, clearly
troubled by something he did not wish to say. He gave the Terran guards,
standing about ten feet away, a quick look, and Herm knew that even though he
was speaking in Darkovan, he did not want the nearby guards to hear what he was
saying.
"Well, we meet at last! Kate, this is my brother-in-law, my sister Gisela's
husband." His voice sounded overly hearty and utterly false in his ears.
"I don't care if he is the King of Ys, so long as we can get in out of this
cold!" She snapped the words in casta, which she had learned from him, then
favored Rafael Hastur with her brilliant smile, the one Herm always thought
could light up the world.
"Of course!" If Rafael was surprised by her command of the language, he showed
no sign, but instead offered her his hand gracefully, not waiting for any
further introductions. He helped Katherine into the coach, and the children
scrambled in after her. The driver was already loading the baggage onto the roof
of the vehicle, and Herm stepped in out of the wind. Despite being a large
carriage, it was rather crowded with five people.
Herm and Rafael took one bench, with their backs to the driver, and Katherine
and the children huddled on the other. Rafael picked up a large woolen blanket
from the seat beside him, unfolded it, and handed it across carefully. Amaury
took it and spread it across their laps, tucking it around his mother
solicitously while the thump of the baggage being piled on the roof seemed to go
on and on. When it ceased, it was followed by the sound of the driver mounting
the box. The vehicle shifted as the horses began to turn around, and through the
window Herm saw a large, derelict building on one side of the plaza, with the
words John Reade Orphanage carved above the lintel of the door. Its windows were
covered with boards, and it looked sad and empty.
Ter‚se's eyes were large with wonder as she examined the carriage. She only knew
of such vehicles from her ancient history texts, and clearly thought it was
delightful. It was made of dark woods, mountain dur and rhowyn, and there was a
small brazier set in a fire box in the floor, giving off a smoky smell and a